


Libernobis: Past and Future Choices

by Isadorabelle



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 05:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4291857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isadorabelle/pseuds/Isadorabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weyoun shows Keevan something he needs to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Libernobis: Past and Future Choices

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place sometime after Chapter Ten of Libernobis. It really won't make sense unless you read Libernobis first, but it is a sort of 'deleted scene' from the story.

The sound of four feet hitting the steps echoed in the lonely stairway as Weyoun led Keevan up the stair well.   
  
“I still don’t understand why we couldn’t just transport in?”   
  
Inwardly, Weyoun had always marveled at Keevan’s ability to effortlessly sew boredom and curiosity together. Of course, he’d never admit that to Keevan as the Vorta really didn’t need another reason to gloat, but he still marveled. Weyoun wondered if the original man, whoever he was, was as much of a smooth talker. Perhaps he’d been a lawyer, someone who defended those that failed to obey the law, or prosecuted those caught, guilty or not, in its web. Strangely, he could see Keevan on either side with his unnerving smile.   
  
“Here, if you’re bored read this. If you trip on the stairs though, I don’t want to hear you complain.” Weyoun handed back a datapadd with the latest news from the Federation that he’d brought back. He listened to the vibrations as Keevan’s steps behind him slowed slightly. Well, apparently that did the trick.   
  
Soon they were at the doorway Weyoun had been leading him to. Keevan only spared a glance long enough to see Weyoun step from it. He followed and his eyes were back on the datapadd as they approached the view Weyoun so wanted his brother to see. Stopping, Weyoun stood silent and waited for his companion to turn his attention from his reading and to the dead city in front of him and below.   
  
  
  
Keevan wasn’t particularly interested in the news or the Federation, but it seemed that both would matter to him. Well, Weyoun thought it would. Personally he thought he’d find some excuse once there and slip away. So many in the Alpha Quadrant hated the Vorta and he supposed that he didn’t blame them, but he still thought he could do better on his own.   
  
When the howl of a breeze caught Keevan’s attention, he finally looked up. The datapadd lowered and as his improved on eyes took in the view, it clamored to the floor. He’d seen dead planets before, cities were the inhabitants had fled some time before, but this wasn’t like that. Everything bard the mark of death, as if someone or something had draped the ground, trees and buildings with a cloak made of it. Immediately in front of his view was another building, much like the one they were in, that stretched high from the ground. He could look down and see the lower stories of the building and Keevan found it unnerving that he didn’t hear anything other than the lonely breeze. No birds, no insects and no movement from scavengers of the society. It was unnerving.   
  
Turning his gaze into their building, Keevan quickly identified that they were on floor with a large, open concept and several degraded and overturned cubicle walls. This was an office floor where faceless individuals had once labored for some larger force. Without prompting from Weyoun, Keevan slowly began maneuvering through the ruin.   
  
A crunch sounded beneath Keevan’s foot. Looking down, he physically jumped back from the corpse he’d just so carelessly damaged. Kneeling, he looked to the figure laying half way out of one of the cubicles. She, he supposed a she, had a skeletal hand clutching her throat while her arm reached out beside the cubicle. Her fingers were outstretched towards something, perhaps nothing at all but desperation. Looking at her face, he saw the flare of her ear bones around her face. Vorta ears were mostly cartilage, Keevan remembered numbly, though there were small bones that gave the riveted structure and the cartilage grew up and around that.   
  
“We abandoned the trees long before the Founders came upon us, Keevan.” Keevan twisted and looked up at Weyoun, whose focus was on the body in front of Keevan. “We had our faults, but we were thriving, and they did this.” Keevan was silent. He didn’t really trust himself to speak. He wasn’t like some of his Vorta brethren. Some of their kind truly loved the less sophisticated and cunning methods of handling people. They thrived on things like fighting and bloodshed, death. It intoxicated them the same way wine did to so many races. Keevan wasn’t one of them and he couldn’t look at the body, knowing it was a Vorta laying before him, and feel anything but nauseous.  
  
Straightening, he looked at Weyoun and swallowed. Turning away from the corpse, he looked back out at the city. A billboard caught his eye. It was located across a small park and, though severely faded, he could make out the feminine face of a Vorta, the way her ears flared and her eyes were shaped. Keevan focused his attention on the picture until he felt confident to speak.  
  
“I don’t know what you want from me, Weyoun. I believe you, that this is really where we came from, but what do you want me to do about it?” Keevan’s usual tone was gone, leaving his voice bare. It was suddenly all to scary, far too real and he fought the urge to run and hide until Weyoun, until all of it, went away.  
  
  
  
Weyoun knew about the corpse. He knew about the view too, and he wanted Keevan to have both of them assault his mind. The affect was what he was hoping for, though he wouldn’t bask in the satisfaction of getting one up on Keevan. On any subject other than this, perhaps, but not here.   
  
“We had families. We reproduced the way most other civilizations do, too. We had artists, people who created these amazing and complex images and sculptures.” Weyoun murmured as he looked at the view with Keevan. “We had philosophers. They gave speeches to whoever would listen, and they wrote books about how…we didn’t need to ask ourselves if we could clone, or if we could build bigger buildings or more powerful weapons, but if we should. They didn’t doubt our ability, but our wisdom behind it.” Obviously, the philosophers lost the argument.   
  
For several minutes, neither Vorta spoke as both were lost in thoughts. Keevan was absorbing Weyoun’s words while Weyoun thought about wisdom and family. He could feel a dull ache in his throat and chest. His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he remembered seeing the city alive. The glass from the buildings glistened and it was never quiet. Even at night, when he treated Mah’lel to a late supper and a midnight movie, the city buzzed. It felt alive and energized, enjoying a mutually beneficial relationship with the people who inhabited in it. It physically hurt to know it was dead, and so were the people that flowed through its veins. Mah’lel was dead. The evidence was there in their home, or at least it had been before he’d given her and Rahlen the most proper funeral that he knew.  
  
Breathing in deeply, he looked at Keevan. “We were victims of our own stupidity Keevan, but if they hadn’t come, imagine what we’d be. We’d be in the stars now. We would’ve made first contact with the Federation as a race intellects—more than likely still arrogant, but as Vorta, not servants.  
  
“We might’ve destroyed ourselves in some foolish world war, fought over meaningless things like intolerance or greed. We might’ve had to expand beyond Kurill because we killed the planet that we sprang up from. But, WE would’ve done it, Keevan.” Weyoun paused and looked at him. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you understand what they took from us?” How could he, he didn’t SEE it. Keevan didn’t feel it in his hands or hear the way Vorta children would laugh, gleeful at a silly little peek-a-boo game. Weyoun waited until his voice was even again.   
  
“I brought you here to see this because we have to get it back. Even if we make bad choices in the future, they took away the right for us to choose.”


End file.
